The Love of the Soil As a Motivating Force in Literature Relating to the Early Development of the Middle West

The Love of the Soil as a Motivating Force in Literature Relating to the Early Development of the Middle West % T Caroline A. Henderson Bachelor of Arts, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, 1901. Submitted to the Department of English and the Faculty of the Graduate School of the Univer- sity of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Approved by: Head TO MY HUSBAND WIIBEEMUSTE E. HMDERSOU A LOVER OE THE SOIL WHOSE GENEROUS INTEREST HAS MALE THIS STUDY POSSIBLE Acknowl edgment s Many people have helped, directly or indirectly, in the preparation of the following thesis. The writers mentions with especial appreciation the assistance of Dr. J.E. Kelson of the University of Kansas in the selection and organization of the material presented. Thanlcs are also due to Professor R.D. 0Tleary and other members of the English Depart- ment for valuable criticisms and suggestions. Mr. Elmer T. Peterson of Des Moines, Iowa gave friendly encouragement to the work. Recognition is gratefully made of the courteous and efficient help of the libraiy assistants of the Watson and Carnegie libraries of Lawrence, Kansas, and of the Public library at Kansas City, Missouri. The writer1 s daughter, Eleanor Henderson, gave indispensable help in the final preparation of the manuscript. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction 1 II. Biographical Preparation of the Selected Writers for Their Portrayal of Pioneer life 17 III. Love of the Soil as a Motive for Western Settlement 34 IV. Characteristic Features in a Composite Portrait of a True Lover of the Soil 51 V. Obstacles in the Course of Lovers of the Soil 59 VI. Compensations 36 VII. Special Recognition of the Con- tributions of Women to the Conquest of the Frontier 96 VIII. Conclusion 103 CHAPTER I Introduction In a lonely "valley of southeastern Colorado, near the junction of West Carrizo Creek with its northern branch, one may yet discover faint traces of one of the lost towns of an earlier day. A broken ridge of Dakota sandstone curving around on the northwest rises high afrove the shelf-like terrace once occupied by the little settlement. One may fancy that this rocky barrier served as a partial defence against the fierce winds and furious winter storms of that desolate re- gion. A single street may still be traced for forty or fifty yards parallel to this rugged rampart. Scattered at irregular intervals over the valley slope appear other isolated and scanty remains of what must once have been the homes of people led thither by some alluring dream. The once- well-trodden street has long been effaced by the low-growing western grasses. But all along its course one may still de- tect the outlines of closely spaced small buildings. At some places nothing remains but the tracing of a foundation over which the buffalo grass is weaving its coarse web. At other places low portions of stone walls remain, though they are weathering and crumbling year by year. Apparently o&ly a layer of mud was originally used in cementing together the rough, -2- unshaped stones which formed these walls. Since the originallstructures have so nearly disappeared, it seems likely that after the Tillage was abandoned, later settlers on the isolated ranches of the surrounding country found these old buildings convenient sources of material for their own foundations, sheds, corrals and the like. Ho bits of wood or brick or glass now appear. All unseemly fragments from the wreckage of that earlier time have bfeen covered by the mantle of the grass — TT the forgiveness of nature." On an upper level above the protecting ridge of rock, one may trace more distinctly the remains of a larger building, possibly a sbhoolhouse or a church. Who can tell? At the eastern end of the street appears the most distinctive feature of the forsaken settlement, an abundant spring of cold soft water gushing from a rocky ledge and flowing away with a soft rippling mux— mer to Joint the stream at the farther side of the valley. Perhaps somewhere elderly people are still living who think at times of their childhood play days, brightened and refreshed by that sparkling water. There may even be more aged people who recall the pain of realizing that their cherished plan had failed, who still remember the sorrow of looking for the last time upon that -unfailing spring, which had been to them t he source of life in a desolate land. According to a statement from the Historical -Si- Society of Colorado, these traces of a Tillage are prob- ably all that remain of Carrizo Springs, one of the settlements established during the Tigorous westward movement in the late seTenties and early eighties of the nineteenth century. Of this particular wave of migra- tion Professor Colin B. G-oodykoonts of Colorado College writes as follows: Land-hungry farmers ventured out on the less de- sirable lands of western Kansas and Hebraska. By 1886 the overflow from these states was making its influence felt in eastern Colorado. A few years of unusually heavy rainfall in this re- gion seemed to prove the soundness of the theory generally held that as land was brought under cultivation rainfall increased. 1 With a return of the normal scanty rainfall and consequent failure of crops in the early nineties, these favorable prospects soon faded away, like the mirages of those arid regions. Farms and small settlements were abandoned; entire counties were practically depopulated. Such had doubtless been the fate of our Tl deserted village.n At one time I was speaking of these ruins to a middle-aged plainsman, who, quite independently of college or university training, has attained to some standing a® a local historian and archaeologist. I lamented the sadness of such unsuccessful projects. It still seems impossible not to feel regret for the unfruitful toil*, the disappointed dreams, the forced 1. Colorado: Short Studies of the Past and Present, p. 84. -4- abandonment of plans which had called forth so much of human effort. It was, therefore, rather surprising to note this manTs response — almost vehement in its emphasis. rTHo,IT he said;TT we should not count their work a failure." He went on to explain that these earliest settlers had been the pathfinders, the roadmakeES. They had prepared the way for others whose later work attained a degree of permanence and material accomplishment impossible for their predecessors. Considering the transitory nature of manTs most substantial-seeming endeavors, — The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, perhaps our friend was right in taking the longer rather than the shorter view. Leadership and the im- pulse toward occupation and development of some prom- ised land — whether of the soil or the spirit — may be in themselves imperishable contributions toward shaping the dreams of a nation. Among qualities that might be considered charac- teristically American, the native, primitive feeling for the earth, the love of the soil for its own po- tential fruit fulness, has by no means disappeared. Here and there it has survived even the feverish years of the abnormal growth of cities at the expense of rural areas. For the present that movement seems to have reached lis high tide and to be pausing or even -5- beginning to recede. Repeatedly during recent months articles in magazines, stray paragraphs among the news items, editorial comment on current conditions, ex- pressions of fe&ling in personal letters have given assurance that, far removed as we are from the ancient worship of Cybele, the great Mother of all life, many people do still ret-in something of the spirit of the far-off days of a primitive faith. love of the soil is an emotion hard to capture and confine within the limits of any spoken or written words. Attempts at expression, even by those most con- scious of their kinship with the life-giving earth, can be but broken utterances, forever inadequate to the pas- sion of mingled pain and joy, of memory and hope that they would suggest. It has to do with some inner response to the scent of freshly ploughed grouad or of a wood fire at night-fall; the barely perceptible sound of thirsty soil drinking in the welcome moisture of a long-delayed rain; the feeling of cool, damp earth on children's feet; fireflies twinkling over a meadow, like a bit of the starry sky above; mushrooms pushing up through rain-soaked soil and making wide circles which may rep- resent, as old-timers say, the paths trodden long afeo by mother buffaloes guarding their babies at night; the sight of fields greening with innumerable spears of springing grain for the nourishment of life; or the same fields mottled with cloud shadows, deepening the -6- shades of green or silver or gold as the grain "bends and rises and bends again before a freshening breeze. Ages ago, Sesiod wrote of the protecting care of thirty thousand gods upon the fruitful earth. Without attempting to prove pr disprove his mathematics, we may sympathise with his feeling that the earth itself gives hints of life and love and illimitable beauty. We may find the vague, inarticulate affections of our hearts voiced by those who seek sincerely to express their own response to the moods of the Earth Mother. The love of the soil here considered is a feeling quite apart from the desire for economic profits from the possession of land, speculative gains, "unearned increments," and the like. In his recent book, The Farm, Louis Bromfield distinguishes sharply "the love of the land" from what he phrases as "love of the earth." like Calteb Gare in Martha OstensoTs Wild Geese, with his in- sane greed for possession, one might have much of the former feeling and little or nothing of the latter.

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